Salafis and strikes: Cairo

Egypt's Salafis are a conundrum. They resent their portrayal by Egyptian and Western media as

 bogeymen intent on taking over the world, then tell you that, in as much, this is exactly what they'd like to see happen.  The Salafis we met were very welcoming and certainly knew a thing or two about how to eat a sheep; rest assured, should a global caliphate arise it'll likely come with more good food than you can shake a Quoran at.  Intrepid reporter Sarah Lynch will have a far more insightful view on this whole situation in next month's Esquire Middle East and an insight into the economic effects of labour strikes in Egypt in next month's Executive.

 

Beirut's Synagogue and Jewish cemetery

For those of you who are a little rusty on your Swedish, the headline below reads "Hezbollah supports Jewish shrine," or so says google translate...

Swedish national daily Svenska Dagbladet printed my pictures of the (almost) reconstructed Beirut Synagogue and old Jewish cemetery to accompany a story by freelancer Emma Löfgren on January 2nd, which made for a nice start to the year. The guy in the picture is Anthony, the decorator responsible for getting the Synagogue back into shape which, rumour has it, may have been destroyed by Israeli shells in the first place...